Small Hand-Beaten Silver Rose

This is a small silver rose I've been trying to make, one of the trickiest things I've ever tried, it's only the 2nd time I've tried playing with silver and the 1st time I've beaten it so I'm still not really sure what I'm doing! The pictures start at the 5th set of petals, the next picture shows 8 sets with the 9th being formed although I think I've uploaded them in reverse. The petals are cut from a strip of silver with a sharp chisel, then beaten and textured with a blunt chisel before being heat joined together. This is the tough bit, normally parts like this would be soldered but a) I wanted it to be pure (sterling) silver and b) I don't have any solder. Instead I'm having to heat it to just under 1000 degrees until the silver is just starting to melt and then trying to limit the melting to the place I want to join. I've lost a few petals as the silver turned molten in the blink of an eye. Still outer 'scale' petals to form and a stem, I'm not sure how to make the stem yet...